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Before and During: 17th day.

Hello everyone,

This is my first time posting here and I thought I'd share my progress just after 17 days.

The image on the left was the first day I decided to get back on track with my health and fitness. A year beforehand, I had taken a break due to grad school and honestly, to take a break from the mental and emotional challenges that come with staying fit. Beginning over 10 years ago in high school, I felt an unnecessary yet debilitating pressure to be skinny. Probably because one of my parents called me fat. I developed a horrible habit of constantly putting myself down if I didn't work out or ate something unhealthy. If I did either of those, I felt overweight and self-consious. I didn't know how to work out or eat properly and lost too much weight. It wasn't until about 5 years ago that I decided to eat healthy and work out for my own well being, not to prove my parent wrong or impress others. That's when I began working out with FB and I got into the best shape of my life. Four years after, I took a break.

Those thoughts from before came back and I thought a break might do me good. Well, I was right, however, there were some consequences. My IBS got worse, my blood sugar levels got out of wack, and I lacked energy. Mentally, though, I felt better. However, that wasn't enough if I felt like crap all of the time.

17 days ago I decided to get back on track. I am eating healthier and I work out when I feel like it, which is 3-5 times a week. I'm not currently following a program, but I follow my own schedule of doing HIIT two times a week and alternating upper and lower body. I want to point out one thing though. Working out when I feel like it might sound ineffective, however, it has helped me tremendously with my mental and emotional challenges. Before I would force myself to work out otherwise I felt like a failure. Today, I want to work out and if I feel like I'm forcing myself, surprisingly, I don't have the energy to work out. So I don't. The biggest challenge was that whether or not I work out, I needed to accept my body and during that year off, I was able to.

Yes, today, I still have the tendency to want to tell myself that you need to work out cause you ate pizza yesterday and all of your improvement went out the window. Those thoughts may always be there, but I am now able to tell when those thoughts come from anxiety.

Anyway, thank you Fitness Blender for changing my life.

Edited